Our Public Speaking team of Francesca, Charli and Phoebe in Year 12 have swept to victory again this week at last Saturday's South-West and Wales Area Final of the Business and Professional Women's Federation's public speaking competition. They now have the excitement and challenge of progressing to the national final in Shropshire on 21st March after beating teams from St Augustine's Catholic College, Wantage, and the Cathedral School, Cardiff.
This is an interesting and demanding competition, in which teams of three consist of a Main Speaker, Chair and Voter of Thanks. Although the competition now welcomes male as well as female competitors, in order to fulfil the BPWF's stated aims of supporting women by preparing them to take a full part in business and public life, each presentation is run like a real-life professional occasion. This means the Chair and Voter of Thanks must meet a guest Main Speaker and prepare suitable speeches of welcome and thanks, by taking full advantage of a 15 minute briefing session before the event begins. Our Main Speaker, Francesca, met and performed with Grace and Arthur from Cathedral School, Landaff, Cardiff, while Charli and Phoebe rapidly got to know Isaac, from St Augustine's Catholic College, Trowbridge.
Isaac and Gwyn (Cathedral College) entertained us with talks about immigration and reality TV respectively, but Francesca delighted everybody with her warm and witty response to her own question of 'What Did the Ancient Greeks Ever Do For Us?' Democracy we were expecting, but alarm clock? Who knew...? meanwhile Charli was assured and professional and Phoebe thought astonishingly rapidly on her feet, synthesising Isaac's complex presentation and responses made to challenging questions.
Our splendid silver winners' platter now graces the Northcote Drawing Room. Meanwhile, as we wait for the BPW final in March, we are at Maisemore next Saturday for the second round of the Rotary Club 'Youth Speaks' competition.
Mrs Robertson
